Newly elected City Council, mayor receive spiritual blessing

In a rare event for elected officials of any governmental agency, the new City Council and mayor were “blessed” during a special ceremony Saturday at San Fernando Cathedral in downtown San Antonio.

I noted in my Sunday story about it that it was actually the renewal of a centuries-old tradition from Catholic-heavy Europe where civic leaders were installed and blessed in cathedrals by priests and bishops.

I have not heard of anything like this before where an entire publicly elected city council attended a special religious ceremony in their honor. Maybe there are others. Pray tell if there are.

In any case, the ceremony, which is the work of cathedral rector Father David Garcia, is careful to reflect a diverse group of religious leaders – from an imam to a rabbi and many Christian clergy. And it also had songs and sacred texts that few faith traditions could object to.

The clergy and city leaders there were in agreement that they all needed help from above at times to do their jobs and also that meeting at the cathedral was an appropriate setting for this recognition of the special relationship between the two communities.

“San Fernando is a Catholic cathedral. We all know that,” said Mayor Phil Hardberger afterward. “But it is also in many ways the city cathedral.”

Hardberger, a former judge, noted that the historical contributions of the cathedral and the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio was a unique factor in making this service an appropriate gathering despite the mixture of religion and politics that some might see as inappropriate.